macOS already has free dictation — why pay for Vocco?
Built-in dictation makes you start and stop it, and stops after 30 seconds of silence. Vocco is push-to-talk: hold one key anywhere, speak, release — the text is already pasted, punctuated, and split into clean sentences. On mixed Chinese–English speech it also gets far more of the English right: in our benchmark, Apple's on-device recognizer got 53% of English words wrong and Vocco's default engine 29%. Your dictations also stay in a local, searchable history for 7, 30 or 90 days — you choose.
Which languages can I mix?
Chinese and English, in any mix: that's what we test and publish. Use the default engine, Qwen3 ASR; it detects the language by itself, with no setting. Japanese, Korean and French work one language at a time (on the FLEURS test set, 60 sentences each with the reference Qwen3 model: 9.6% of characters wrong in Japanese, 4.0% in Korean, 8.5% of words in French); mixing them with English hasn't been measured, so try it during the 14-day trial. The built-in Apple Speech engine works out of the box but recognizes one language at a time, for languages macOS can handle on-device. Everything runs offline. The app's own interface is in English and Simplified Chinese.
Does it really work with no internet?
Yes. Transcription runs entirely on Apple silicon, and audio never leaves the Mac. The app goes online only to check this Mac's trial or your license, load current prices, look for updates, and download a speech model the first time you pick one; when you're offline it keeps going with what it last knew. None of those requests contain audio or text, and none needs an account.
What happens after the first 14 days?
Vocco switches to the free version by itself: 30 minutes of dictation a week, and live or file transcription up to 15 minutes at a time, without speaker separation. Nothing locks and nothing is deleted; your history stays. We never had your card, so nothing is charged. Buy Pro in the app whenever you want the limits gone.
Is Pro really one-time? Could it turn into a subscription?
It's one payment, and it won't turn into a subscription. Pro costs $29 at launch until November 30, 2026, then $39 (in mainland China ¥149, then ¥199), and covers every Mac you own with all future updates. If you've bought Pro, you never pay again. New buyers no longer get a monthly plan; if you already subscribe, your plan keeps working and renewing until you cancel.
How do I use Pro on another Mac, or restore it?
Open Vocco on that Mac and either sign in with Google or Apple using the email you paid with, or paste the activation code from Settings on a Mac that already has Pro. One purchase covers all your Macs. If neither works, email support@vocco.co with your order number.
